STOP [story]TELLING and START LISTENING to Your Customers!

Enough of storytelling! While you can tell the most engaging stories and craft the most immersive experiences for your consumers, are you making an equal amount of effort to [constantly] listen to your consumers? Because just by developing a se*y and innovative digital platform for your campaign may win you awards but may not result in intended marketing objectives!

The Connected Viewer - The End of Disengaged TV Advertising

Many advertisers were worried about the impact that DVR would have on TV ads. Guess what!

The Connected Viewer is changing TV ad consumption.

Going by the growing multi-screen trend, loss of TV viewers from second screen viewing to advertisers is way bigger than the DVR. If consumers are spending time on a second screen, it is quite obvious that the impact of traditional advertising is getting smaller. And this behavior of tuning out from TV ads (generally due to lack of engagement) will only get worse!

So how can advertisers address this changing behavior?

Forget Digital.. Future of Media is in the "Internet of Things"

The foundation of the new digital economy is built on the changed behaviors and attitudes of people who increasingly rely on digital technologies - primarily enabled by the internet. But the Internet is continuing to evolve. Initially it was the static Web, and now it is social, mobile, cloud computing and wireless networks. However beyond the technology (open, simple and distributed), the Internet's culture of collaborative innovation keeps having a transformative impact on companies, communities and institutions.

In 2008, the number of devices connected to the Internet exceeded the number of people on Earth. And these devices are not just smartphones and tablets. They are everything around us - from smart televisions to interactive coke machines, from motivated running shoes to the interconnected cows, bananas and more.

While social networks (network of connected people) is reaching saturation, the 'internet of things' (network of connected things, as well as things and people) is gaining traction. By 2020, there will be 50 billion things connected to the internet! Every person, animal, and thing could be connected.

The (virtually) Real Difference between Old Media and New Media

“I thought the attractions of being an astronaut were actually, not so much the moon, but flying in a completely new medium” - Armstrong told his biographer.

It's always been about the experience in a new medium! And today you don't need to be an astronaut to fly into a new medium. New media technologies are available at the consumer's fingertips. The real question for brands today is how to effectively leverage these consumer technologies in order to take brand experiences to the next level. But before that, it is important to understand the key differences in old and new media:

The New Brand Tree: Growing the Fruits of Earned Media

What is the the new Brand Tree?

The new Brand Tree is inspired by nature.

Building a healthy brand is like growing a healthy tree.

Give Brands nothing, but take from them EVERY THING!

Battle: The Great War of Digital Consumerism
Strategy: Use Digital to connect, engage, and destroy brands, one interaction at a time!
Weaponry: Digital media or media enabled by the converging forces of social, mobile, cloud and internet of things
Incumbent: Brand
Challenger: Consumer

Who will win this war - consumers or brands?

Consumers push Brands forward...
If today brands are feeling that customers change loyalties at the flip of a coin, they have absolutely no idea about the Great War that is only beginning to take shape. This War will be started by the Digital Consumer and will inspire the entire consumer base to rise and win the war of consumerism if brands don't act now!

The Digital Epicenter: Convergence of Forces to drive Innovation

Three years after I wrote the article on the new facets of Innovation, we are seeing forces come together to redefine how business will be conducted by keeping the consumer in the center of all decisions. 

Multimedia, social media, and the Internet of Things is fueling exponential growth in data for the foreseeable future. To enable the next frontier for innovation, competition and productivity, companies will need to fish where the fish is (on social networks), allow consumers to access information in anywhere, anytime (via mobile devices), and derive customer intelligence from big data. This can only be possible using scalable yet cost-effective cloud infrastructure. 

The digital epicenter, as show in the figure above, is the point of convergence of digital forces - social (behavior), mobile (access), cloud (delivery), big data (context)*. This is the target state that companies should aim for, where true customer-centricity can be realized.